According to Salmon Group’s Ingebjørg O. Sævareid, closed production salmon farms are a “partial” but not the “be-all and end-all solution”. She believes these kind of sites will bring new challenges.
“A closed environment is particularly vulnerable if disease or challenges arise with water quality. Then it’s often game over. The whole production can go up in smoke,” said Sævareid to Bergens Tidende.
Sævareid is a trained fish health biologist and head of fish health and nutrition in Salmon Group, a network for small to medium-sized salmon farmers in Norway. Here she works with fish welfare, feed and medicine.
Sævareid told Bergens Tidende that closed production salmon farms may sound like a simple solution, but she emphasised that sea-based farming in Norway has been running since the seventies, backed by over four decades of knowledge of the industry.
“It is in the sea that salmon naturally belong. We do not have as much knowledge about salmon farming on land. It is wrong to believe that a closed facility on land will solve problems with illness,” said Sævareid.
